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Books for Lent

I chose the vocation I did because I love words. And especially words about God.

And if I wanted to be honest, I would say that my vocation called me, but that is another post entirely.

As we enter the 40+ days of Lent (there are 46, by the way, because Sundays are always considered feast days for the church and don’t count in the Lent to Easter equation. So, without any bad feelings, you can take a pass on your Lenten discipline on Sundays), one of the things we are invited to do is to meditate on God’s Word and to make time for that reflection. In addition, I love to make time to read at least one or two books that help me reflect on Lent and the way of God in the world.

So here are a few for you to consider for your Lenten discipline. I always link to Amazon (it’s just easier), but you can almost always find these books anywhere else on line, and some at your local bookseller.

Free of Charge: Giving and Forgiving in a Culture Stripped of Grace by Mioslav Volf. This was the Archbishop’s Lent book for 2006, and is written by a former professor of mine from Yale. Remarkable stuff. Don’t be distracted by the fact that Miroslav is a prof at Yale. This is accessible stuff. He makes a great comparison between himself as a cyclist, the innate way ducks quack and God’s love (get the book if you want to figure out how this works). This book (like all of his books) is deeply personal, and looks at how Jesus suffers in our place and what that really means.

Bread and Wine: Readins for Lent and Easter by various authors. I love books like this; it’s a collection of readings for Lent and Easter from a variety of people spanning a great deal of time. There are readings from St. Augustine and Philip Yance Pascal and Henri Nouwen. There are readings for each day in Lent and for half of Easter as well. It begins on Day 1 (Ash Wednesday) with a selection from Kathleen Norris. In it she tells of her work with young students as a Poet-in-Residence and one boy’s poem called “The Monster Who Was Sorry.” She writes, “He began by admitting that he hates it when his father yells at him: his response in the poem is to throw his sister down the stairs, and then to wreck his room, and finally to wreck the whole town. The poem concludes, ‘Then I sit in my messy house and say to myself, “I shouldn’t have done all that.”‘” She continues by saying the boy was more honest than most adults and well on his way toward repentance. Nice for short reflections during the season.

Speaking of Sin: The Lost Language of Salvation by Barbara Brown Taylor. A wonderful short reflection on language around sin by this Episcopal Priest and professor at Piedmont College. Taylor ponders how when we lose a way to talk about sin in our lives—we say “problems” or “issues,” but even now less and less of even that—we also lose the language of salvation. If we don’t have sin, what are we being saved from? She contends that when we have language around sin, we can move from “guilt to grace.” A short book that is well worth having on your shelf.

The Solace of Fierce Landscapes: Exploring Desert and Mountain Spirituality by Beldon C. Lane. At times our journeys take us into difficult landscapes, often seen as deserts and mountains in scripture (and in real life, if you’ve been to these places). Lane plunges deep into wrestling with his own wilderness times—writing about his mother’s struggle with cancer and Alzheimer’s—and rejecting the common language of Christianity being an easy road as expressed in pop spirituality. In moving beyond the common understanding, he looks at how desert times become a mirror for our own inner brokenness, and the need we have for God to bring healing in them. Perfect meditations for the desert season of Lent.

The Poor Will Be Glad: Joining the Revolution to Lift the World Out of Poverty by Peter Greer and Phil Smith. One of our Lenten disciplines should be the giving of alms. This book lays out how to do this with an extended telling of stories about how bad poverty really is, and how easy it is to help. The focus is on micro-finance with practical steps on how you can help change someone’s life through a small loan. One of the stories is about a man who runs a small pharmacy who needed to close multiple times a day to run out a get more supplies because he had only enough capital to buy a few things at a time. With a small loan, he could buy more supplies for a cheaper price, cut down his traveling to once a week, and keep his store open for longer hours. He easily paid back his loan and expanded his business. Wonderful on both the theory and the practice.

That’s five for now. I hope you find something here that will whet your appetite and help you take on the Lenten Discipline of study. And why don’t you take a moment to comment about a favorite Lenten type book that isn’t listed here.

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Phil LaBelle

Phil LaBelle discovered that a calling as a priest and writer brings him great joy. He gets outside often to hike and take inspiring photos, and currently is hiking the 48 4,000 foot peaks in the White Mountains of New Hampshire.
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The Rambling Priest

Phil LaBelle is a husband, dad, and Episcopal priest. He loves hiking, films, reading, cooking, photography, and writing. He serves as the rector of St. Mark's Episcopal Church in Southborough, MA where he lives with his family and beagle.